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Democrat Davis forms committee for Kansas governor's race

Kansas House Minority Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat, has formed a campaign committee for a possible run for governor.

Kansas House Minority Leader Paul Davis formed a campaign committee Thursday for a potential run for governor next year, becoming the state’s first prominent Democrat to show an interest in challenging Republican incumbent Sam Brownback.

Davis’ first move as a potential candidate appeared aimed at wooing moderate Republicans dissatisfied with the conservative governor’s policies on taxes and social issues, such as abortion. Davis appointed former state Rep. William Kassebaum — the son of former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker and a GOP moderate — as his campaign treasurer.

Also, two other prominent Kansas Democrats announced their support for a potential Davis candidacy, Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, of Topeka, and businesswoman and former Board of Regents member Jill Docking.

State law requires candidates to form campaign committees to begin collecting contributions. Other prominent Democrats have mentioned Davis, a Lawrence lawyer, as a potential candidate for months, but spokeswoman Haley Pollock emphasized his action wasn’t a formal announcement of a decision to run.

Davis said in a statement he will make a formal announcement about his plans in coming weeks.

“Until then, I look forward to engaging the people of Kansas in a discussion about our shared vision for the state,” he said.

Davis, 41, has served in the House since 2003 and as minority leader since 2009. He has been a critic of Brownback’s push for aggressive personal income tax cuts, arguing that the reductions enacted under the GOP governor benefit the wealthy and will create budget problems that will hurt schools, universities and social services.

Brownback has promoted the cuts as a way to stimulate the state’s economy, and he has strong support among conservatives who make up the core of the GOP’s base. He is favored to win a second, four-year term in GOP-leaning Kansas, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 344,000 among the state’s nearly 1.8 million registered voters.

David Kensinger, a close Brownback ally who managed his successful 2010 campaign, said the governor’s next campaign won’t depend on his challenger but instead will focus on the governor’s record of cutting taxes and pursuing policies that have created jobs and improved the state’s overall financial health.

He also noted that in 2009, prominent Democrats endorsed Tom Wiggans, a former pharmaceutical company executive, as the party’s leading candidate, only to have Wiggans abandon the campaign in mid-December 2009. Kensinger said Davis may simply be preparing to run if no other Democrats are willing to do it.

“They’ve spent all year trying to get other people to run,” Kensinger said.

Davis’ filing came after Tresa McAlhaney, 33, of Bonner Springs, declared as a Libertarian candidate for governor.

In recent months Democrats also have mentioned Docking and former Kansas Agriculture Secretary Joshua Svaty, of Ellsworth County as potential Brownback challengers.

State Sen. Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, the Democrats’ nominee in 2010, has said he won’t run again, and another potential candidate, former Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller, said she considered the race but decided against it.

Svaty said last month that he is focused on a new job as vice president of an institute that promotes sustainable agriculture, and Docking said Thursday that she is supporting Davis.

Hensley pledged to support Davis “in every way possible” if the House Democratic leader runs.

And, in naming a campaign treasurer, Davis was linking a possible campaign to two Republican icons.

Nancy Kassebaum Baker was perhaps the state’s most popular politician when she served in the U.S. Senate from 1979 through 1996. Her father — grandfather of Davis’ treasurer — was Alf Landon, governor in 1933-37, unsuccessful as the 1936 Republican presidential nominee but later a revered political figure.

Davis’ statement said the family has “a long record of moderate bipartisan leadership” representing “exactly what Kansans want.”

William Kassebaum served in the Kansas House in 2002 and 2003, having unseated a conservative majority leader in the Republican primary in 2002. But he was defeated in a rematch in the GOP primary in 2004.